About this page. This page summarises a Domestic Homicide Review published in the Home Office DHR Library. The full report is available at the source link below. Victim and perpetrator names are not included in extracted summaries on this page.
Source · Domestic Homicide Review

Middlesbrough review

CSP: Middlesbrough Published: December 2022 Year of death: 2018 Extracted: 7 recs

Statutory domestic homicide review under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. Source: Home Office DHR Library.

Original review (PDF) ↗ Source: Home Office DHR Library

Summary AI-generated

Verify against the full report at the source link
The review found that agencies had no direct knowledge of the victim's domestic abuse, despite family and colleagues holding pieces of information. There were missed opportunities by health professionals to proactively inquire about domestic abuse, particularly given the victim's mental health concerns and the perpetrator's deceptive behaviour. The panel also concluded the homicide was an honour killing.

Home Office classifications

25 tags

Source-supplied classifications used by the Home Office to catalogue this review.

  • Victim - anxiety
  • Victim - depression
  • Victim - had been a victim of an abuser before
  • Children - living with victim (including adult children)
  • Children - present at homicide (including adult children)
  • Child - primary address same as victim
  • Perpetrator - case heard in court
  • Perpetrator - issued life sentence
  • Perpetrator - known to others as a domestic abuse perpetrator
  • Perpetrator - known to family as a domestic abuse perpetrator
  • Perpetrator - known to workplace (employer) as a domestic abuse perpetrator
  • Aggravating factors - coercive or controlling behaviour
  • Aggravating factors - honour based violence
  • Aggravating factors - psychological or emotional abuse
  • Aggravating factors - physical abuse
  • Aggravating factors - economic abuse
  • DHR process - family contributed to dhr
  • DHR process - family consulted about terms of reference
  • DHR process - family received draft report
  • DHR process - health services recommendations
  • DHR process - community safety partnership recommendations
  • DHR process - identification of risk recommendation themes
  • DHR process - training recommendation themes
  • DHR process - policy recommendation themes
  • DHR process - awareness raising recommendation themes

Extracted recommendations

7 recommendations pulled from the report · 3 matched to organisations in the index

Recommendation 1

Addressed to Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership

The Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership should review the effectiveness and if necessary strengthen the information provided to family, friends, work colleagues and diverse communities about recognising the signs of domestic abuse and what they can go, if necessary anonymously, with such information. In particular there should be a focus on smaller businesses that do not have the infrastructure in place to support victims of abuse.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 2

Addressed to Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership

The Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership should seek assurances from health agencies and commissioners within the partnership that professionals are trained in recognising abuse, being alert to indicators and understanding the links between mental health and domestic abuse. Professionals should have clear understandings of pathways and when appropriate use routing enquiry to ask and understand if a patient is a victim of domestic abuse.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 3

Addressed to Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership

Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership should seek assurance from agencies that their policies and training in relation to domestic abuse recognise the barriers that victims of domestic abuse may face, and that measures are in place to help victims overcome their fears about making a disclosure of domestic abuse. Where gaps are identified agencies should provide assurance that plans are in place to deal with them.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 4

Addressed to Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership

Middlesbrough Community Safety Partnership should seek assurance from agencies that they have policies and training in place to recognise and respond to ‘so called’ honour based violence. Where gaps are identified agencies should provide assurance that plans are in place to deal with them.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 5

Addressed to Human Fertility and Embryo Authority [HFEA]

The Human Fertility and Embryo Authority [HFEA] ensure that health professionals working in this sector have policies, systems and training in place that ensure staff proactively look for risk indicators of domestic abuse and ask direct questions when appropriate opportunities are available.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 6

Addressed to NHS England

NHS England considers issuing guidance to GP practices to ensure patient care is not impacted upon by other relationships that may exist, for example, were there is also a business or commercial relationship.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗

Recommendation 7

Addressed to Home Office

Home Office work with the Employers Initiative to create best practice policy for small family owned and run businesses [such as pharmacies] that provides guidance on how staff and employers deal with disclosures, suspicions or indicators of domestic abuse.

Verified wording from the published review · Original review (PDF) ↗